Follow the money in Wall Street collapse
The collapse of the financial system is not an unfortunate byproduct of deregulation; it was a cold and calculated enterprise. The conspirators even had a dry run here in Chicago in 2001.
Close to 1,500 people lost much of their life savings when Superior Bank of Chicago went bankrupt with a billion dollars in deposits.
The bank sold bonds securitized by subprime mortgages. The idea was to sell loans, collect commissions and then walk away when the loans defaulted and let the bank fail. The mafia calls this technique a bust out.
In 2002, all 50 attorneys general pleaded with the Bush Administration to stop the predatory lending practices they knew would lead to the collapse we see today.
Instead of helping, in 2003, Bush invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act nullifying all state predatory lending laws.
The OCC also created new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks.
Follow the money. Mr. Paulson resigned as CEO of Goldman, Sachs to become treasury secretary in 2006, having amassed a personal net worth of $700 million during his 32-year tenure at the bank. It appears that Goldman Sachs profited by the subprime crises. Kate Kelly's Wall Street Journal article of Dec. 14, 2007 explains how while Goldman Sachs was trading CDOs, they were also betting so heavily against them and that when they failed, the profit they made more than offset the losses. Ben Stein's Sept. 24, 2008 article in Yahoo Finance openly states that the Credit Swap Defaults allowed financial entities like Goldman Sachs to bet on whether these CDOs would ever get paid. The profit can be wildly out of proportion to real amount of the defaults. Stein writes, "In fact, they can be so large that one might well wonder if the whole subprime fiasco was not set up just to allow speculators to profit wildly on its collapse."
See who reaped the profits from this conspiracy and bring criminal charges against them under RICO. Raiding the national treasury is a Republican concept because they believe deficit spending is the only way to destroy what they call entitlement programs. Republicans would rather give money to the rich than help the middle class.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson game is to put taxpayers on the hook for this theft. This is not a $700 billion bailout. Globally there are $600 trillion in world liabilities, plus more than $400 trillion derivatives. We must let Wall Street fend for itself and go after the personal assets of the people behind this bust out of our treasury. Mr. Paulson intends to go back to Wall Street, but this is not over yet. This is part of the plan to privatize Social Security. God help us if McCain becomes president.
John Morgan
Arlington Heights